


In the Long Ago

by tablelamp



Category: Alice In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Labyrinth (1986), Wayward Children Series - Seanan McGuire
Genre: Bonding, Fantasy, Friendship, Gen, Portals, School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 07:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16614932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tablelamp/pseuds/tablelamp
Summary: All children who have traveled know that doors can open from world to world, but only some know that doors can open within the same world, across distance and across time.  Sarah was about to find one of those doors.





	In the Long Ago

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lilith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilith/gifts).



All children who have traveled know that doors can open from world to world, but only some know that doors can open within the same world, across distance and across time. Sarah was about to find one of those doors.

She didn't know that, of course. She was cleaning her room, and tossed a stray pen onto her desk. It bounced toward the mirror, and instead of bouncing off, it fell through. If Sarah hadn't been looking, she would've missed it entirely, wondering some months later where that pen she'd found had gone, but otherwise believing it to be lost. Many lost things are simply on the other side of doors that haven't been noticed.

But Sarah did see, and she turned to face the mirror warily. She'd learned to be careful of impossible places, though once they had been the subject of her imaginings far more often than anything else. Now they hovered around the corners of her dreams, appeared in flashes of lightning, dimpled around her baby brother's smile. Sarah didn't want to go back to the Labyrinth, not ever.

But maybe this was someplace else.

Sarah approached her desk slowly, reaching out to touch the mirror's surface when she was close enough. It gave under her hand, soft and pliable. This was the moment where Sarah could still turn back, could remove her hand from the mirror and turn her back and finish cleaning her room. No one would've blamed Sarah for doing this, especially with all she had experienced, but even if Sarah didn't yearn for adventure anymore, she was still curious. So she pushed harder on the mirror and watched her fingers disappear inside it. She reached out with her other hand, pushing it inside the mirror...and then she felt hands grab hers and pull.

She would've screamed, but by then her mouth was full of mirror.

It was dark as she passed through the mirror, but she emerged into light and landed with a thump on the other side. Panicking, Sarah looked around the room where she now was, which appeared...oddly normal, if old-fashioned. The walls were covered in yellowing paint, and there was antique furniture everywhere. Could there be a Junk Lady living here? It didn't seem messy enough, but if they could replicate Sarah's room at home, they could do anything.

It was then that Sarah realized she wasn't alone in the room, and she scrambled to her feet, dusting herself off as she stared at the small, wizened woman who stood opposite her. "Where is this? Am I back in the Labyrinth?"

The woman burst into laughter. "Dear me, no! You're in Maine."

Sarah stared at the woman. "Maine?"

"Bingham, Maine, to be exact," the woman said. "It's a small town, but a lovely one."

Sarah regarded the older woman with some suspicion. She had learned to be careful about who to believe. The older woman looked like a retired teacher, but Sarah's room in the Labyrinth had looked like her real room. Places could be disguised. People could be disguised. "You're sure this isn't some part of it I haven't seen before?"

The woman's expression saddened. "Oh dear. You didn't have a very nice time there, did you?"

Sarah took a step backward. "How do you know?"

The woman shook her head. "You wouldn't be here if you had. I'm Miss Alice, and this is my school for children who didn't like the worlds they'd been sent to." She nodded to something behind Sarah, and Sarah spun to find herself standing in front of a huge, floor-length mirror. "Most of you arrive by mirror. It's the easiest way I have to reach you."

Sarah looked back at Miss Alice. "Why am I here?"

"To recover," Miss Alice said. "While you were visiting your other world, strange things happened there...frightening things, perhaps. You still fear what happened even now that you've returned."

Sarah's heart was thumping hard. "How do you know all this?"

"Because that's what happened to me," Miss Alice said bluntly. "My door opened twice, and neither time was a particularly enjoyable experience."

Sarah shivered. "I don't want to go back."

"Of course not," Miss Alice said. "One of the things that we teach you here is that you always have a choice. Even if your world calls to you again, you need not answer."

"It's not my world," Sarah said, though somehow she felt that she was lying, and was sure Miss Alice must know it too.

If Miss Alice did know, she chose not to mention it. "Would you like to see your room?"

Sarah flinched involuntarily. "I'm not--"

"Temporary housing," Miss Alice said gently. "This is only a boarding school. You're able to go home at any time. You've been through quite enough already; we wouldn't keep you against your will."

Sarah nodded, relieved. "Okay."

Miss Alice led Sarah out of the antique room (which must have been hers) and down the plush-carpeted hall, stopping at a small room with a warm light inside. Miss Alice knocked and then opened the door, revealing a girl about Sarah's age in a skirt and sweater that Sarah thought looked like an outfit out of an old movie. The girl was reading at her desk.

"Susan?" Miss Alice said. "I've brought a visitor."

Susan looked up and frowned at Sarah. "Hullo! What happened to your clothes?"

Sarah looked down at herself. They were normal as far as she could see, but maybe Susan came from a strict family, or a school that had uniforms. "I was cleaning my room."

"Sarah will be staying with us for a while, and I was hoping you might be willing to share your room with her," Miss Alice said.

Susan nodded. "Of course, Miss Alice." 

"Good," Miss Alice said, clapping her hands together. "I'll leave you two to get acquainted."

Sarah gave Susan an awkward smile as she entered the room, which already contained two beds and two desks. Only one bed was made up, and only one desk had anything on it. Sarah knew that, if she'd had a room to herself, the other bed and desk would probably have been covered with her things too, eventually. She crossed to the empty bed. "I guess this one is mine." She flopped onto it, discovering that it was surprisingly comfortable. "So. Did you go to the Labyrinth too?"

Susan turned to face Sarah. "No. Do you mean the Labyrinth from myths? In Crete?"

Sarah shook her head. "No, I don't think so. The one I went to was a maze, though."

There are moments, usually not noticed by the people in them, where the creation of a friendship is possible. Turn in one direction, and the friendship forms; turn in the other, and the people involved remain strangers to each other. Neither Susan nor Sarah was aware that this was one of those moments, but Susan chose the direction she and Sarah would move in when she asked, "What was it like?"

Susan was the first person Sarah had ever told about her travels, and to be believed as though such travel was unremarkable was an unexpected relief for Sarah. She took the first deep breath she'd taken in months. "I don't know. Weird, I guess, and unfair. But interesting. I've spent a lot of time trying not to think about it."

Susan nodded, her eyes sad. "I understand."

"It was my fault I went there at all," Sarah admitted. She'd had no one to tell at home, no one to confess the depths of her mistake to. She couldn't be forgiven if nobody knew the truth about what had happened, and Sarah felt she needed at least some form of forgiveness from someone. "The Goblin King took my baby brother because I wished for it."

"Did you get him back?" Susan asked, looking worried.

"Yeah," Sarah said. "Not that he'll remember." It was strange to have such vivid memories and to know that no one else shared them. Hoggle would remember the parts of the journey he'd been on, and so would Ludo and Sir Didymus, but Sarah had so far been sparing in how she called on them, afraid that she might accidentally open the door to their world in the wrong direction. 

"He might," Susan said, a strange expression on her face. "Sometimes brothers do."

Sarah looked at Susan, sure that Susan understood in the way only another adventurer could. "You have a brother?"

"Two," Susan said with a smile. "Peter and Edmund. Ed's usually a bit more in need of saving."

Sarah wondered if Susan's experience had been anything like hers. "Did they go with you? When you went...wherever?"

"It was called Narnia," Susan said. "All four of us went--Peter, Ed, Lu, and me."

"Lou?" Sarah asked.

"Lucy, my sister," Susan said.

"What was Narnia like?" It had never occurred to Sarah that she'd be able to talk with someone else about their experiences in other worlds. In the books she read, there weren't large numbers of people who traveled between worlds. No one came back from lands beyond and expected to find other people in their classes who'd been there during summer vacation. At least Susan had brothers and sisters who'd been with her, who remembered, and who she could talk to about it.

"Wonderful," Susan said quietly. "And cruel. Narnia showed me a life I wanted and then took it from me."

"I'm sorry," Sarah said. It didn't seem like Susan wanted to go into detail about what had happened in Narnia...but maybe what had happened was fine, and it was returning from Narnia that had hurt Susan so much. Sarah wondered what it would've been like to love the Labyrinth and to want to stay, but even with her very vivid imagination, she couldn't imagine that. The Labyrinth would have to have been different.

"So am I. It would be easier if I didn't remember, but I do."

Sarah nodded. "That's how I feel sometimes."

Susan smiled at Sarah. "I see why Miss Alice wanted us to share a room."

"I hope you don't mind too much," Sarah said, smiling back. It was nice to know that she could explain what had happened, or not explain, or do both at different times, and that whatever she did would be accepted and understood. She hoped Susan felt the same way; it seemed as though she did.

"No. I was beginning to feel dreadfully bored being shut up in here alone," Susan said. "There's rather a large library down the hall--would you like to see?"

A new library sounded perfect to Sarah. "Of course!"

Susan stood, straightening her sweater. "Come on then. I'll show you."

All children who have traveled know that doors can open from world to world, but only some know that doors can open within the same world, across distance and across time. And sometimes those doors open when the people near them need them most--at least, if Miss Alice has anything to say about it.


End file.
